The temperatures are heating up, and now is the time to start thinking about pool party safety before invitations go out, snacks are bought, and you open your pool up to entertain your or your children’s friends. A pool party can be a great way to beat the summer heat, but it can also be a recipe for disaster. With so many guests in an unfamiliar pool, your attention focused on hosting guests, and enthusiasm that sometimes outweighs good judgment, it can take mere seconds for a fun afternoon to turn into a tragedy. Accidental drownings can happen at any time. To keep your guests safer, you need the right safety equipment, a good set of pool safety rules, and a dedication to safer fun that protects your loved ones.
Why Pool Parties Can Be Dangerous
Whether you are hosting a pool party or attending one, you need to be mindful of the increased risks you face. While some parties are structured for safety and attendees are diligent, others can turn chaotic, with kids running everywhere, adults not paying attention or compromising their judgment with alcohol, and crowd sizes that are far too large to be easily managed. When hosting a pool party, making sure you put safety first can go a long way toward preparing you for the experience. Even if you’re just a guest at someone else’s party, understanding pool safety and making a priority in your own behavior can help keep you safer and help you better watch out for others’ safety too.
Before The Party Planning Starts
A focus on pool party safety starts before you begin forming your party plans. It starts with a focus on basic pool safety rules and practices you and your family will use day-to-day for a safer pool area.
- Get trained to be safe. – Water safety evolves as your age and experience with water mature. For the youngest swimmers, this can be as simple as water familiarity classes, progressing to swimming classes for older children, and onto lifeguard and water safety classes for older teens and adults. Don’t forget to learn CPR and first aid so you can better manage emergencies if any injuries should occur. Making sure the people in your household have the right skills reduces their risk of drowning and makes sure they are ready to use them is important for pool party safety.
- Build a safer pool area. – The National Drowning Prevention Alliance states that a lack of barriers around water is a contributing factor in the majority of drowning accidents. Before you consider using your pool to entertain, for the safety of your own family and pets, protecting your pool with professionally installed safety barriers is a must. Removable mesh pool fencing and pool safety nets can help prevent unsupervised access to the pool area, reducing the risk of drowning.
- Make sure your pool and surroundings are in good repair. – A lot can happen to your pool over the winter months. Wood can splinter, tile can come loose, and paster or cement can chip and crack. Take the time to give your pool a thorough inspection before any pool party, focusing on safety, repairing or replacing any issues you find.
Planning The Party
Once your pool party safety is up to par, you’re ready to invite your guests. For some, this may be their first introduction to pool safety rules that allow swimmers to have fun while keeping them safe.
- Plan your activities for a structured day. – Your day’s itinerary doesn’t have to be minute-by-minute, but you should have a general idea of what you want guests to experience at your party. Include both a start and stop time as well as breaks to allow time for swimmers to get some rest out of the pool. This can be especially important for parties with younger children, where exhaustion can set in fast, and they may not realize a break is needed.
- Make sure the pool area is ready. – You will want to ensure the water is safe and healthy. Do another pool party safety inspection, looking for not just damage but also debris, trash, or hazards that may have accumulated in the pool area. Exposed wires, splinters, and even broken deck chairs can all present dangers once guests arrive.
- Order or purchase everything you’ll need for the day of the party. – If at all possible, you want to make sure you will be present the entire day of your pool party. The best way to make sure your pool safety rules are followed and your guests are protected is to make sure there’s a responsible person there at all times. Food, games, beverages, and any other entertainment should fit your plans for the party and be ready to go the morning of the festivities.
Time To Party!
All your pool party safety preparations are about to pay off for you and your guests. You’ve created a safer pool area, learned how to be a better swimmer and lifesaver, and you’ve got all the supplies your party calls for. It’s time to enjoy your pool with your loved ones.
- Assign a water watcher. – At least one responsible adult who knows how to swim should be assigned to watch the water at all times. If they need to leave, the responsibility should be passed onto another water watcher until they return. If your party is running the whole day, you may want to schedule shifts, so every water watcher gets a break. This ensures at least one responsible party is always keeping an eye out for swimmers in distress or hazardous behavior.
- Communicate your pool safety rules effectively. – Don’t trust a posted sign to convey the rules. Talk with your guests, formally or informally, about pool party safety. They need to understand the importance of working together so everyone can have fun and reduce the risk of drowning injuries.
- Control the pool area. – Aside from assigning a water watcher, you need to make sure you know what is entering your poolside area and what activities are happening. This helps you make sure guests are following your pool safety rules but also helps you head off items that shouldn’t be near the pool, like electronics, strewn towels, or glass containers. These hazards can lead to cuts, slips, falls, and accidental drowning. You can also curtail horseplay before it becomes a danger for attendees.
- Close your pool when the fun is done or anytime an adult won’t be present. – If a responsible party isn’t going to be supervising the action, either because they have to step away or there’s no action to monitor, use your removable mesh pool fence or pool safety net to secure your pool and keep it protected. Mesh pool fencing resists climbing, offers no gaps large enough to slip through, and uses a self-closing and latching gate that restricts entry. Properly tensioned and installed, a pool safety cover or net blocks access to the surface of the pool, helping to keep children and pets out of harm’s way.
Improve Your Pool Party Safety Now
When you schedule a free estimate from your local Lifeguard on Duty installer, you’re working with a neighborhood pool safety professional that’s ready to tailor your pool’s protection to your needs. Removable mesh pool fencing is easily taken down to allow for the largest parties while setting back up in minutes to keep your loved ones protected the rest of the time. Finding out how cost-effective peace of mind can be comes with no obligation. Request your free quote from Lifeguard on Duty today.
